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This research work aims to create a theoretical base for new urban planning guidelines involving a comprehensive study of housing in Damascus with emphasis on social and cultural factors. The research starts with a historical review of the Muslim City in general and distinguishes between cities that existed before Islam and then were conquered and modified by Muslims and cities established by Muslim Authority. The focus is only on the residential quarters in the city and the local market, mosque and etc (outside the old walled city of Damascus). Other Muslim city urban elements such as Grand mosque, caliph's residency, Citadel and etc. are not in the scope of this study. A brief historical review of Damascus before and during Islam and the development of residential quarters are illustrated. Later, the study analyzes the traditional residential quarter and explores the building guidelines that governed the evolution of the built form of the quarter. Then, the study explores the multi-faceted changes (economic, social and political) that the Middle Eastern region went through, in the last century, in general and the effect of those changes on the city form, case of Damascus. The effect will be traced through examining the decrees that the Authority issued in order to govern land reform and manage public and private domains. Then, the study looks at the ramifications of those decrees on the urban form of Damascus. It also investigates the decrees that were the guide for new planning and organizing developments. The study will inspect the end products of the planning and organizing process by studying several cases of building permits. Then, provides morphology of the new residential sub-quarter and its urban form. Based on lessons learned from the previous decades of housing policy, the study will recommend foundation for governmental norms to produce responsive physical and social urban forms.
This thesis aims to provide a quantitative, cross-nationally comparative, longitudinal and multilevel study of the drivers and hindrances of national governments' anti-trafficking measures. In this research, both macro-level determinants of anti-trafficking enforcement and micro-level foundations of human trafficking are explored. In the manuscript, large-N comparative research examines how characteristics of countries interact with people's attitudes towards violence to better understand what creates environments that are more or less supportive of governments' anti-trafficking efforts. The results presented in the thesis speak not only in favor of studying this topic systematically and cross-nationally, addressing existing gaps in the literature but also in favor of combining macro- and micro-level evidence for developing more effective policy responses against human trafficking.
Does grass-roots civic engagement improve the quality of public services in countries in which formal oversight institutions are weak? It is obvious that formal oversight institutions are weak in developing countries, which causes low-quality public services. This weakness is particularly critical in the health sector - a service domain of crucial relevance for development. This observation has led practitioners to believe that the direct engagement of the beneficiaries of public services is a means to compensate the weakness of oversight institutions and to improve the quality of these services. Given that beneficiaries have incentives to demand good quality services, it is indeed logical to assume that their participation in the monitoring of public services helps to improve the quality of these very services. This positive view of grass-roots civic engagement resonates with the idea that an active civil society helps a political system to build up and sustain a high institutional performance In the eyes of the donors of development aid, this idea nurtures the expectation that strengthening civic engagement contributes to increased aid effectiveness. Accordingly, donor countries have increased their efforts to strengthen beneficiary participation since the 1990s, which moved the concepts of voice and accountability center-stage in the international development discourse. However, whether citizens' capacity to exercise pressure on service providers and public officials really improves the effectiveness of development aid remains an unresolved question. Building upon recent experimental and comparative case study evidence, the thesis examines the role of citizens' engagement in the effectiveness of development interventions. The focus is on such interventions in the health sector because population health is particularly critical for prosperity and development, and ultimately for democratization. The key question addressed is if and under what conditions ordinary people's engagement in collective action and their inclination to raise their voice improves the effectiveness of development assistance for health (DAH). I analyze this question from an interactionist viewpoint, unraveling the complex interplay of civic engagement and health aid with three key institutional variables: (i) state capacity, (ii) liberal democracy and (iii) decentralized government. Drawing upon social capital theory, principal-agent theory, and selectorate theory, I provide compelling evidence that health aid effectiveness depends on (a) bottom-up processes of demand from service users as well as (b) formal processes of top-down monitoring and horizontal oversight arrangements. In other words, the very interaction of behavioral and institutional factors drives the accountability in public service provision and thus the effectiveness of development assistance for health in recipient countries.
This dissertation presents an analysis of the relations to self and technology that emerge from and in the use of self-tracking technologies. The ethnographical study, combined with the Grounded Theory approach and a media analysis, demonstrates the complex intertwining or duality of control and care towards oneself that emerge or become possible in and through the application of ST technologies. ST devices assist in strengthening one's health and well-being in a playful way, building and maintaining a positive self-feeling, self-image and agency, and discovering unknown abilities and potentials within oneself. The ST technologies used provide orientation through complexity-reducing visualizations, highlighting patterns, and trend progression. They challenge through self-overload, dissatisfaction when not achieving goals, self-deception and distraction, narcissism and even loss of control - internally through compulsion to control as well as externally through loss of data otection and exploitation of private data by third parties, as well as handing over responsibility (in the form of decisions) to technology (algorithms) instead of self-responsibility. These two seemingly opposed yet concurrently existing self-relations reflect the dynamic between today's demands for self-responsibility (in health and performance terms) and the need for self-care and guidance for the many relevant, sometimes daily, decisions. They balance possibly existing tensions and ambiguities between the modes of self-relations that at first glance seem to be opposed and yet ultimately are jointly oriented towards the same goal, namely to master one's life (life maintenance) and to be in balance. The self-relations described in this thesis are supported, reinforced, or enabled by ST technology (and practice). Three different roles that ST technology can take in self-care and self-control were elaborated: technology as a means, a counterpart, and a promise. In relation to technology, another dialectic is visible, which shows the apparent contrast between its conception as a tool and means to achieve something and the approach to technology as an intimate counterpart (partner, nanny, coach) and a promise of salvation. The relationship with technology seems to intensify in and through the ST experience and takes on or is assigned a partner-like role by the users. Finally, the results indicate that the concept of (self-)optimization, contrary to its etymological meaning of a logic of increase, can also be understood differently, namely balancing. In this context, optimization does not necessarily mean the fastest, the highest, the strongest, but something that is achievable and satisfactory for the self - within the framework of the given and the desired. At the same time, the optimization understood as harmonizing and balancing in self-tracking becomes a lifelong task that, in principle, can never be completed because with the addition of new vital areas in life and throughout a lifetime also the individually understood and conceived balance often shifts.